


The Big Carry On

by Zara Hemla (zarahemla)



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarahemla/pseuds/Zara%20Hemla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We learn.  We move on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Big Carry On

**Author's Note:**

> This is set right after ep 1x17, "I Think We Should Have Sex."

  
We're both self-centered,  
but the world revolves around us at the same speed.  
\-- Jeffrey McDaniel. "Absence."

  
In the truck, Tyra says they should take him to the emergency room. Through the high haze of anger and pain, Tim hears his brother laugh bitterly.

"Collette, are you off your meds? Three thousand dollars just to walk into that place. We can't pay for it."

"His face -- " she starts, but Billy cuts her off again. "We got no money, do you hear?" And then Tyra's huff and then quiet. Tim leans against the cool glass of the window and watches Dillon through the blood that drips, slowly, down over his eyelashes and onto his cheek. His whole body is still singing from the fight. He wants more than anything to go back and finish it -- finish everything. Finish having to listen, having to learn, having to go to next Friday's game alone again. The town whirls by in a haze of orange and wind from the half-open window.

Billy finally slams the truck to a halt outside the house, gets out, and hauls open the door on the passenger side. "Get out," he says, and he doesn't even sound angry. "You're bleedin on my seats."

From his other side, Tyra gives him a little push, and he spills out onto the driveway, barely stopping himself from going facedown into the concrete. Billy catches him by the elbow, and their gazes meet for a minute, and Tim sees only sympathy in his brother's eyes, sympathy and a little pity, and he shakes off Billy's hand because he hates that Billy was -- once again -- right about everything.

"I'll take care of the cuts," says Tyra. "I know where the stuff is."

"Tyra, go on home." Tim is almost surprised to hear himself talk -- the night has been so silent.

"No," she says. And she and Billy haul him into the house and onto the sofa.

Billy leans over and whispers in his ear, as Tyra goes out to find bandages, "Take me with you next time." And then he is gone -- Billy doesn't like blood. When Tim gets a bloody nose or a cut from practice, Billy just hands him a box of Kleenex or Band-Aids and puts on ESPN real loud. Billy has never, in Tim's memory, gone out and got himself in a fight with a bunch of redneck assholes. Or hustled pool with his drunk dad. Or banged his best friend's girl. His head throbs and he begins to feel very sick, but by main force he does not throw up. It would hurt his lip too much.

Tyra reappears at his elbow with some bottles and stuff and sits there for a minute, her hair turned to solid gold in the lamplight, giving him a look he knows very well. She gave him the same look as he was breaking up with her. As she was getting in the car and driving away. But she never did quite drive into the sunset; she keeps coming back. Tim is not sure why. He's not sure, basically, about anything. He thinks he loves Tyra and hates her, both at the same time. He thinks the same thing about his father.

"You're all dirty," she says quietly, taking his hand and looking at his scraped-up palms. "How are you gonna hold a ball tomorrow?"

He's not really sure but he says something to her about how he can take care of himself.

"Of course you can," she says, still staring at his hands. "You always have."

Tim leans his head back against the couch and tries not to bawl like a baby as she cleans rocks and grit out of his palms. He wishes he'd had more to drink; maybe it would hurt less. A real man wouldn't cry, maybe. Maybe a real man wouldn't have hustled a stranger out of his money in the first place. Maybe a real man wouldn't steal from his son's school.

"My dad -- he stole a videocamera from the school," he says, and Tyra looks up at him. Her eyes are green and clear, like a Texas lake. "He lied and told Coach Taylor he hadn't seen it, but I found it in the garage. I kicked him out of the house. My old man, huh?"

He can tell she's trying to smile but it's not really working. "You're not like him, Tim."

Somehow he can't stand to hear her say it. "Can the shit, Tyra. Let's not pretend you care." She doesn't say anything to that low blow, so he looks away from her and out the window, and she finishes putting a gauze bandage on his hand, then picks up the other one. In silence, she picks gravel from his hand, and probably pretends not to hear him hissing and cussing under his breath.

When she's done she angles the lamp into his face and starts fussing around his lip, but he tells her just to leave it the hell alone. "It's gonna break open anyway from talking or eating. Just leave it, Tyra."

So she goes to his forehead, and as he is kind of looking down her shirt while she cleans the cut there, she says, "Here's some breaking news to add to your list of fun things. I found out today that my mom was fucking Buddy Garrity."

Tim about jumps out of his seat, or he would have if he hadn't hurt so damn much.

"What?!"

"He hired her to be his receptionist. But I guess all he wanted was some ass, Riggins, because he told her today that he was sorry ... that he did it all in a moment of passion ... and that she was fired. Isn't that nice?" Her voice is quiet, but there is murder in it. "Lyla Garrity's dad gettin' his on the side, and my mom letting him do it ... _letting him do it_. My old lady, huh?"

Tim is still trying to wrap his mind around Tyra's nice, fadedly pretty mom doing the deed with fat Buddy Garrity, who never talks about anything but football, ever. "Tyra ..." he starts, but he can't think of what to say to make that better. Maybe there is nothing.

She finishes with his forehead and puts her hands on his shoulders and her face down to his. They are nose to nose, as close as they haven't been since a long time before she left him.

"Do you think I'm like my mom?"

"What?" he says in confusion.

"Do you. Think. I'm like my mom."

"Do you mean would you sleep with Buddy Garrity? Hell, I hope not." He tries for a crooked smile (and fails). Tyra doesn't smile at all, just keeps looking at him.

"My mom is weak in that area -- she needs a man to survive. Do you think I'm like my mom? You think just because she lives like she's in a country song, that I will too?"

"N -- no." Tyra doesn't need anyone to survive, he's sure of it. She'd been fine after him, on her own, and she has a steel backbone. So he says it harder -- "No."

"Right answer." Her hand comes up and she holds him gently under the chin, forcing him to look at her like a little kid. "Our folks are just people, Riggins. Remember that. They do stupid-ass things every day. But we -- we do not have to be like them. We learn. We move on."

This is starting to be kind of like an Oprah special; all this wanting and feelings directed at him is getting creepy. "All right, mom, I get the point, okay?" He pushes her off him and stands up, stripping off his shirt, heedless of her annoyed huff.

"You don't get it, Riggins, but remember this, and someday you will. You are not like your dad. You _are_ not."

"Yes ma'am." He slides out of his jeans and grabs a blanket, headed for his room. But he hasn't got rid of her yet; as he's finished brushing his teeth he hears her making the bed, and when he comes out it's all nice and straight, with two pillows plumped up. Like he thinks maybe his mom would have done if he had a mom.

"Down," she says, pointing to the bed, and he lays down. She dives into her purse and comes up with, of all things, a hairbrush. Starved for comfort, drowning in sleep, he lets her turn off the lights and pick sticks and leaves out of his hair in the dark and quiet.

When he wakes up aching in the morning, she's gone, and only Billy is around, making eggs and avoiding conversation. Tim's face is black and blue, and the camera still needs to be returned. Dillon is the same tired-assed town as always. Nothing helps it pick up its feet and run.

\--the end--


End file.
